My wife alerted me to this bit of news earlier this morning and I haven’t seen it reported at all in the English-language press, so allow me to share this with you. The message above was allegedly received by a merchant on the incredibly popular Chinese on-line market place Tabo Bao. The message demands that the seller remove all manga that depict homosexual acts or the homosexual lifestyle from their Tao Bao shop. The demand is in accordance with a policy aimed at producing “a more harmonious society”- the go-to justification for anything in the public policy of the Chinese Community Party. While censorship is nothing new for China, the motivation to restrict information is usually political, personal, or related to promoting a favored business (personal relationship business or Chinese firm over foreign firm). Bootleg films and comics are widely available in China. You don’t have to look too hard. Like in most places, the rise of the internet in China has repeatedly threatened and changed the status quo. Like QQ, Baidu, Tudou, Renren, and Douban, Tao Bao has become an incredible force in the on-line consciousness of China, but unlike those sites, it is still very much rooted in the material world. With this policy and its enforcement, the capability of any resistance movement to use the on-line marketplace to distribute unpopular literature is challenged and a precedent is set for all communities using sites like Tao Bao to engage in less than sanctioned economic activity or rather perfectly sanctioned economic activity in which the content of a book compels the government to intervene its sale and distribution.